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Collection and Donation of Abandoned Bicycles (Ongoing)

Recent Project Updates

  • 7/7/2025
    This morning, Sarthak, Emily, and Max visited the seven shipping containers to check their progress, attach a padlock to each shipping container door, and put an identifying sticker on each shipping container. Each shipping container now also has...
  • 7/1/2025
    As of this morning, Emily, Max, and Ricardo have finished Phase 2 of the abandoned bicycles project for 2025, identifying abandoned bicycles. 262 bicycles were identified as abandoned and are prepared to be collected by the parking department....

Associated Collections

Description

Every summer, Facilities & Services (F&S) tags all bicycles left on campus property and confirms the abandoned bicycles. University Parking cuts the locks, collects, and transports the abandoned and unwanted bicycles on campus.The bicycles are inventoried at the storage facility and the bicycles are searched in the University's registered bicycle database to identify the owners of the impounded bicycle. If the bicycle is registered, the owner is contacted to collect their bicycle. If the bicycle was not registered, it is kept in the storage until mid-September.

Bicycle owners have until mid-September to claim their bicycles. If the bicycle is not claimed after this holding period, the unwanted bicycle is donated to The Bike Project of Urbana-Champaign. Many of these bicycles can be refurbished but due to the volume of bicycles collected, most are donated to the non-profit Working Bikes for shipment to overseas partner agencies. The Campus Bike Center Manager goes to the storage facility and collect bicycles for refurbishing and prepare the rest for shipment.

No description has been provided yet.

Bicycles Donated to Working Bikes Chicago

Project Team

  • Primary Contact:

    Sarthak Prasad

    Project Leader:

    Sarthak Prasad

    Team Members:

    • Jake Benjamin
    • Stacey DeLorenzo
    • Brandon Alexander - Parking

Themes